Strip Search
by Arkylie Killingstad
Summary: Finch's attempt to recruit Reese gets turned on its head when Reese accidentally knocks him out (that time he slammed him into the wall) and decides to turn the encounter into a proper interrogation. (Content Warnings above first chapter.)
1. Turnabout

**_Disclaimer:_** _A sleeper hold might be relatively safe (when used by someone trained in the appropriate technique), but the method John uses here to keep Harold under for a few minutes is something I made up._ _ **Do not try this at home.**_ _There doesn't appear to be any safe way to keep someone unconscious for several minutes (without drugs) without the serious risk of brain damage or worse._

 ** _Content Warnings:_** _Nudity (non-sexual), capture/kidnapping, being tied up, physiological reactions to stress, psychological manipulation; mention of forcible tooth removal (canon)._

* * *

One moment, he was standing in a hotel room, explaining - in a somewhat dramatic fashion - what it was like to listen to someone die and know you couldn't do anything about it.

The next, he was lying on a bed, and dealing with a pounding headache. Covered by a sheet up to his shoulders, and a little bit uncomfortable from the chill. He opened his eyes to sunlight and an off-white blur above him, and took in the fact that he was almost certainly naked.

Harold only ever disrobed completely for showers, so this detail was far more alarming than the rest. He stiffened, and felt around frantically, futilely, for his glasses. The sheet was tight, as if tucked in at the corners, and wouldn't give when he tried to pull part of it loose so he could sit up without exposing himself.

His breath was coming faster, edging up toward panic. Where was he? Who had brought him here? Who had taken off his clothes, and why? He tried to piece together his memories, but they stopped short right after he held out a newspaper and mentioned Jessica. After that, as far as his brain was concerned, he'd blinked and he was... here.

His neck hurt, though. That wasn't unusual - he'd had to train himself to ignore chronic neck pain as best as he could - but it seemed more severe than it usually did. Had Mr. Reese hurt him? Knocked him out? A blow to the head could cause short-term memory loss, but-

"It's funny, Harold," came a voice, mildly amused, "but you told me to call you Mr. Finch, and here your ID says _Harold Wren_. Couple credit cards, too - same name. Dry cleaning receipt. Got me wondering what your _real_ name is."

Drawing in a shaky breath, Harold shut his eyes. One data point established: Mr. Reese was the type of person who could knock out and kidnap someone, strip off their clothes, and effectively tie them to a bed without even having access to rope. Harold wasn't entirely sure what to do with that information.

"Mr. Reese," he said finally, stammering only a little, "I remember being considerably more dressed than this."

"Mmm-hmm," Reese said, not sounding particularly concerned.

"Dare I ask why you saw fit to-"

"Seemed like the easiest way to keep you from running off," Reese said, as if patiently explaining the most obvious thing in the world. "Don't worry, the brain damage shouldn't be any worse than getting drunk enough for a hangover."

Harold's eyes shot open. "Brain... damage?"

"Sleeper holds don't last very long. I just reapplied one every half-minute or so. Eight seconds on, thirty seconds off; doesn't let you wake up but doesn't interrupt the oxygen flow too badly. Kept you out long enough to switch floors, find an empty room, and stick you in that bed." He paused. "I would have just put you in the bed I woke up in, but you obviously didn't move me there yourself, and I don't know how soon your associates'll be back."

That explained the headache. Suddenly dizzy, Harold took a deep, shuddering breath. "I can see I've made a grievous error in judgment," he said, trying - _failing_ \- to keep his voice steady and calm. "I don't think we'll be working together after all. Please give me my clothes back and you can be on your way."

"Now, Harold," Reese said, patiently, "you put this much effort into getting my attention, and you're just gonna throw me away?"

"You did just kidnap me, Mr. Reese."

"You started it." Reese's tone was laced with amusement.

Harold swallowed heavily. Just a few hours ago, he'd been staring at Reese through a fuzzy video feed, watching the whiskey seep into the carpet and recalling, too vividly, those months of his own life when it made more sense to drown in self-destruction than to deal with the reality of what he'd done. In the wake of Nathan's death, he'd come _so close_ \- not to taking his own life, but to taking the life of another, deliberately, his wounded heart set on nothing but vengeance. As if he could get rid of his own pain and guilt by passing it on to another. If he had gone through with it, the Harold who came out the other side would have been unrecognizable.

Reese was stumbling down a similar path, toward its inevitable conclusion. The signs were obvious enough; it wasn't the most pressing reason Harold had focused his attention on Reese, but it certainly factored in. He couldn't just let the man kill himself, not when he could see it coming and step in, give him a better option - not just for a day or a week, but possibly for a lifetime.

But after Reese had turned down his offer the first time, Harold had been at a loss. If words had failed - and if Harold couldn't yet trust him with a secret as portentous as the Machine (even if Reese already had some hints of it to build on) - what other options remained? Perhaps something could get through to him on a visceral level, bypass his conscious objections long enough for him to give the idea a fair hearing. At the time, the drama of waking up zip-tied to a bed with the sounds of murder in the next room had seemed… not _entirely_ unreasonable.

Knowing now firsthand what it felt like to wake up tied to a bed, not knowing what your captor's plans were… Harold was stunned by just how monumentally stupid the idea had always been.

And for Reese - how much worse? Harold could imagine scenarios, but Reese had _lived_ them: Pain, fear, deprivation, violent deaths - even torture, active torture, Harold hadn't found the evidence for it but he wasn't that naive. A PTSD-inducing service record's worth of memories to dredge up as possible outcomes when you wake up bound to an unknown bed. That panic in his eyes... _Harold_ had subjected him to that.

"I must apologize," he said, his throat tight. "I didn't... think through… the implications. I was a little desperate at the time, but that's certainly no excuse."

Reese didn't answer right away. Harold's heart was racing.

"You have any idea how dangerous that was, Harold?"

"I… believe I'm starting to get the idea, yes."

"I don't think you are." Reese's voice was soft, almost gentle, yet conveyed no emotion. The contrast made Harold's blood run cold. "You've managed to get details about my life, my service, maybe my preferences for this or that. You know I'm a trained killer and very good at it. But the thing is, you clearly didn't manage to put together the details to _understand_ it all. Could've gotten you killed."

"I… didn't imagine you'd actually _hurt_ me, Mr. Reese," Harold stammered, even as his stomach clenched at the thought of what Reese was conveying: How disastrous this meeting could have gone. Could _still_ go - by this point he'd given up trying to predict what Reese might do to him. If he were sitting up, if he had his glasses, he could at least have tried to glean some hint from Reese's expression... but surely Reese could disguise his intentions visually as easily as he hid them in his voice.

"Haven't run across many violent people, have you, Harold?"

 _If only you knew_ , Harold thought, as his internalized poker face was already pushing down thoughts to the contrary. But the jibe was a fair one: For all that Harold spent a decade teaching computer programs to pick out terrorists, and nearly a year coming face to face with the worst of humanity in all its stomach-churning permutations, he still didn't have it in him to think that way - to truly put himself in their shoes. He knew enough not to trust the government or, well, bodies of people in general (it wasn't for nothing that he'd been in hiding most of his life), but the idealistic side of his nature still won out, still wanted to believe the best of people, see them as rational agents.

What had he even been thinking at the time? That surely even a trained assassin wouldn't harm an obvious cripple? _Hopeless_.

It was, of course, why he needed someone like Reese: A balancing force, someone to make the kind of judgment calls that required a different kind of mindset. That thought brought him back to one of the other reasons he'd selected the man.

"I'm well aware of your capabilities, Mr. Reese," he said firmly. "I admit I didn't put enough thought into how you might respond, and that was foolishness on my part. But I think - that is, I _thought_ \- that all you've ever wanted to do was protect people."

He'd planned those exact words, but now, hanging in the silence between them, the assertion sounded hollow. Harold closed his eyes again, and waited.

Eventually, Reese let out a breath. "If I'd realized the neck damage was so severe, I would've thought twice before slamming you into the wall like that." He sounded slightly hoarse. "That's the part that could've killed you. You're lucky it only knocked you out."

What could he say to that? He didn't even remember the moment of impact.

He heard footsteps cross the carpet, go out of the room. Reese was leaving? But before Harold could properly begin to panic, the footsteps came back again.

"Kinda surprised your henchmen haven't caught up with us," Reese said. "Here I've managed to attack you, knock you out, drag you up the stairs, break into a room, take off all your clothes, set you up on that bed, _and_ go through your personal effects, and still no interruptions. Granted, it's only been five minutes, but if they were competent bodyguards-"

"They're not bodyguards," Harold said heavily, wondering what the admission was going to cost him. "No one's monitoring this situation, Mr. Reese. It's just you and me."

Reese paused. "You trust me that much?"

"I… did," Harold said.

"A trained assassin on the run, judgment and impulse control impaired by alcohol. And you, in no condition to withstand a little roughing up, let alone defend yourself. Frankly, Harold, I'm having trouble grasping your reasoning."

"My reasoning?" It sounded stupid the second he said it.

"Why would you put yourself at the mercy of a guy like me?" This time, Harold caught an undercurrent to the nearly toneless words. Curiosity, yes, but also… shame. Self-disgust.

Before this whole encounter went south, Harold had had a speech in mind. One line caught his memory now: _They lied to you; I never will_. Whatever he might say here, it had to be the truth. And he knew, all too well, the honest answer to Reese's curiosity… but he hadn't wanted to admit to how long they'd been crossing paths. Not yet - because the admission came with its own dangers, and raised even more questions he couldn't afford to have Reese digging into.

The truth, though, was a specific point in time, the point at which he'd understood that whatever else Reese might be, he wasn't _merely_ a killer. Now, as Harold lay there, pinned down naked and helpless under a sheet - as the implications of the man's shame rolled over him - he suddenly wanted nothing more than to remind Reese of that fact.

"I saw you spare Mr. Casey," he said, surprised at how calm it sounded as the walls between their worlds came crashing down.


	2. Trust Exercise

_I know of one YouTuber (Matthias) who finds tooth trauma of any sort to be so distressing, he'll walk out of a movie if someone loses a tooth. The mention here is short, and about a canon detail, but just a heads-up._

 _Also, Harold imagines a murder scenario that involves strangulation._

In the wake of Harold's admission, Reese stayed silent. Harold forced himself to go on.

"Last year, Mr. Casey's… information crossed my path, and I… tried to protect him. But I-" The sudden assault of memories choked him, and he had to take a moment to compose himself. Reese didn't interrupt. "I couldn't save him, and he ran off. But I was there when-" He swallowed again. "You could have shot him. You were _ordered_ to shoot him. I expected at any moment to be sitting there helpless, watching him die. But you lied to your partner and helped Mr. Casey get away."

"...you force-paired Casey's phone," Reese said, a mix of skeptical and impressed.

"You stole Mr. Casey's teeth," Harold countered. "I sometimes have nightmares about the way you held him down to do it - the sounds he made. And the blood."

It was a moment before Reese answered, and his voice came out a little rough. "Pain's better than death. It had to be fast, and there wasn't any other way to get them off his trail."

"I appreciate that, Mr. Reese, but that doesn't make it less horrible." Harold noticed that his hands were shaking, and rubbed them against each other, under the sheet.

He hadn't even heard Reese move, but suddenly he felt a shadow cross his face and the tips of his glasses slide in around his ears. Startled, and a little trembly, he brought his hands up, as if to reassure himself that the glasses were his, and then he was blinking up at Reese's face.

Reese's expression was blank, unreadable; he simply studied Harold for a long moment. The return of the glasses was… what, an olive branch? But having his captor this close made Harold tense up, senses on high alert, so he was relieved when Reese finally pulled back out of sight.

"You've been in an explosion," Reese mused. "I know shrapnel wounds; got a few of my own. What happened?"

Of course: Reese had seen him, every inch of him, or at least had the opportunity as he was pulling off pieces of clothing and muscling him onto the bed. The panic came swelling back as he wondered if Reese had knocked him out a few extra times just to get a more thorough look. Before he'd pinned him down with the sheet. Harold shivered miserably - he'd never felt more exposed.

"Well, Harold?"

Once he got his breath back, Harold licked his lips nervously. "I… didn't have a chance to make it clear, Mr. Reese, but I'm a… a really private person."

"A really private person who doesn't grant that right to anyone else."

"I have wrestled with the contradiction before," Harold admitted, "but there's a very good reason for it in my case."

As soon as he'd said it, he knew it was a mistake.

Reese chuckled lightly. "Well, then... guess this ends when I know 'exactly everything' about that reason - or when you convince me that I can trust you _without_ knowing that."

A creeping, suffocating feeling, like sinking slowly into quicksand, took the last fight out of Harold's system, and his arms fell loosely to the bed. There was no point now. If those were the conditions... he'd never agree to the first, and while he'd earlier felt like the second was in his grasp, now it felt, if not impossible, then extremely doubtful. Not enough to bank on.

"After… all of this," he said, wearily, "I'm not sure I _can_ convince you to trust me."

"Guess we'll be here a while, then."

"If - if we really can't work together-"

"I'm not even talking about work anymore. I need to trust you just to let you walk out of this room."

Adrenaline flooded through him all over again; his stomach lurched. "Wh-what?"

"I said no to you once, and you tracked me down, waited for an opportune moment, and then had your men transport me to wherever the hell this is. Sure isn't the hotel I passed out in. You're clearly not government, but you've got people in your employ who don't make a fuss about kidnapping. On top of that, I've been trained to spot and evade tails; you shouldn't have been able to follow me.

"So you've got resources I can't even guess at, you want my help badly enough to go to extremes to secure it, and there's nothing stopping you from taking me captive again the next time I let my guard down. More competently, and maybe with some means to control me."

Harold closed his eyes and pressed his lips together against the rush of nausea. So much so wrong - he didn't want to control Reese, he wanted to _save_ him, and secure his help _to save others_ , a goal he'd been positive Reese would share. But Reese had no reason to expect Harold's intentions to be so benign. In failing to account for that perspective shift, Harold had fumbled this entire encounter; he couldn't see any way to salvage even a small percentage of it.

Reese would never work for him now, and would keep him prisoner waiting for a condition Harold couldn't meet. And, after a while, if he came to the conclusion that he couldn't trust Harold at all… well, there were more final ways to solve the problem.

"Even if you don't come after me directly," Reese went on - as if it needed to get worse - "you've dug up all sorts of information that could set a dozen different dogs on my trail. So you're a threat until you prove otherwise. Just walking away, letting bygones be bygones… not gonna happen.

"So tell me, Harold. How'd you get those scars?"

Surely it seemed like a small thing to Reese, an easy opening move, asking for the details of when and where the explosion had happened. To Harold, though, the risk was unacceptable: Digging into the ferry bombing would find Harold Martin, which would quickly reveal Grace. Reese might not be a threat to her directly, but just the act of looking into her affairs could endanger her.

"I'm not asking for a lot right now," Reese said, voice soft and low. "Just a little show of faith, a few details I might be able to verify, y'know? Tell me about the explosion."

The trick was obvious: Make it sound like a reasonable request, like it was silly to hide something this trivial in the first place. Get the flow of information started, so it was that much harder to stop once it came to the important stuff. Establish a baseline so the lies were easier to spot. Harold was hardly unfamiliar with interrogation techniques, and had spent years schooling himself to resist them - long before the Machine ever made his defenses so crucial. Now his mind raced, looking for some other way, something he could say to make Reese trust him, to get past this barrier between them… but he was coming up blank.

"You could stonewall me for hours," Reese said mildly. "Refuse to tell me even the most basic info. You know what it'd get you?"

Harold stayed silent, trying not to imagine Reese choking the life out of him and leaving him there, naked, for the hotel staff to discover in the morning. At least that kind of end would probably be quick, and he wouldn't be around for the aftermath.

"I'd rip the phone cord out of the wall," Reese said, with no greater passion than anything else. "Take your cell phone with me, even though I doubt there's anything useful on it. I'd take your clothes, and your glasses, and maybe even the sheet. If I were in a particularly bad mood, I might hide all the towels, too. And I'd hang a _Do Not Disturb_ sign on the doorknob as I left. Wonder how long you'd lie there, putting off the inevitable? Long enough for me to get out of New York, at least."

Harold's mouth worked soundlessly for a while before he finally closed it, his eyes pricking with tears. How was it possible that a scenario without pain or death could be that disquieting? Another data point on Reese: He was terrifyingly inventive. And he'd somehow figured out, just from observing Harold, how much Harold relied on his wardrobe to act as a shield against the world around him. Walking down a hallway naked... _unthinkable_.

Minutes passed. The adrenaline slowly worked its way out of Harold's system. His arms went cold… or perhaps had been cold for a while, and he was only now noticing. Reese stayed silent; he held all the cards, and had laid most of them on the table, leaving Harold alone to think over how the game might go from here. The sooner Harold came to terms with the reality of his situation, the less distress he'd have to endure before this was over - one way or the other.

Even that technique, Harold understood, but understanding it didn't make him immune. Reese was right: Stonewalling wouldn't get him anywhere useful. And even though it seemed like such a long shot by this point, there was more at stake here than just Harold's freedom or even his dignity. He took in a shuddering breath.

"September 26th, 2010. There was… a f-ferry." His face pinched tight as the confession brought to mind memories he tried to keep buried when he needed to stay operational. Swallowing, he closed his eyes. "Someone set off a bomb. Twenty-eight people were killed at the scene; eleven more died in the hospital. Many others were wounded… including me. But at least I could walk away."

Something landed on the bed beside him; startled, Harold reached for it, and found his undershirt. He hesitated, but then, swallowing, decided to accept that this was just the way things were going to go. Under the sheet, he squirmed his way into the garment. Then, still feeling far too exposed, he pushed himself up into a sitting position. There were only two pillows; he tried his best to make it comfortable, but there wasn't a lot he could do.

Lounging in a cushioned chair in the middle of the room, Reese looked far more relaxed than Harold had ever seen him before. Being in charge of this encounter had certainly taken the edge off. He was idly thumbing through the contents of Harold's wallet; on a chair beside him, piled neatly, were the rest of Harold's clothes.

"Feel better?" Reese asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "Little bit of truth can clear the air, don't you think?"

"Odd viewpoint, coming from a covert ops specialist. And how do you even know that was the truth?"

"I don't," Reese said easily. "But it fits. Shrapnel's a year old, surgery scars a bit newer." He tapped Harold's phone. "I did some quick research on New York events around that time, and that's what crossed my radar. At least, that's the one that made the news. So while you could have been hurt in some other explosion, maybe somewhere other than New York, I think I'm gonna trust you on this one."

"...but not enough to give me my clothes back."

"Baby steps, Harold. Give it some time."

"Diane Hansen doesn't _have_ time," Harold protested with a glare.

"You said you didn't even know what she's involved in. Any idea as to _when_?"

"Not… no. Imminent, that's all I know."

"So all these delays… ticking clock, Harold. Sounds like your stalling comes with a penalty all its own."

For the second time that day, Harold felt the fight utterly drain from his body, his limbs going slack. Reese was right: It wasn't a choice of whether or not to hold onto his secrets, it was a choice of whether his secrets were worth Diane Hansen's life. Since the bombing, he'd surrendered nearly everything else, but the knowledge he carried… it could kill people. Merely _knowing_ certain things could put you on a hit list.

So it wasn't as easy as just handing it all over and letting the chips fall where they may. This was going to be an actual struggle between revealing too much and revealing too little. And if those boundaries overlapped the wrong way, or if he made the wrong judgment call, the fallout might make it impossible to help Hansen - or anyone else.

But he couldn't walk away. There was nothing for it but to try.


	3. Defenses

Despite the need to hurry, Harold stayed silent for a while, sorting through the hidden details of his life. What could he give over easily? Surrender if necessary? Which parts could he reveal to a potential partner, but not if Reese were truly going to walk away?

Adept as he was at handling large sets of data, Harold still found the task daunting, given the short deadline. There were secrets he _couldn't_ give Reese, certainly not now and possibly not ever. Even so, his mistake with Dillinger had been ignoring the potential fallout of keeping his agent in the dark. Harold would never forget the cost of his preference for privacy - and now Reese had made it clear that he didn't appreciate the tactic any more than his predecessor had.

He needed to show Reese that he was at least attempting to be reasonable, needed to volunteer _something_ , but his brain was tangled in secrets; any detail he could hand over would tease out a few dozen related details he didn't want the agent to latch onto quite yet. The right kind of follow-up questions would make even Harold's hesitation reveal far more than he intended.

It was oddly tempting to just bring up his criminal history. The felonies on his record - the past he had schooled himself to think of as someone else's backstory instead of his own - would open the door for Reese to locate his birth identity, and then they'd be on equal footing, each able to threaten the other with exposure. But that kind of cold war was far from ideal: They needed to come out of this situation with mutual trust, not holding each other at gunpoint.

What else might he offer? Giving up a safe house implied the existence of other safe houses, and pointed to Harold's focus on security and anonymity. And it chafed to give anyone that much awareness of his safety net, but that was mostly personal preference. Reese already had enough information to guess at the pattern of his most common aliases, and Harold could confirm that by handing over a third; if his instincts about Reese proved wrong… well, he could always drop the bird names, lose "Harold" for good, and be gone in a matter of hours.

Adjusting to a new set of cover identities would be a hassle, but it was easy enough to craft them, to ensure that they couldn't be traced back to any of the previous set. He was far more skilled at this game than he had been at seventeen, and had far greater reason to get it right than merely escaping a charge of treason. He wouldn't even lose the most crucial facet of his life right now: Blessing or curse, the Machine would keep up with him no matter how far he ran.

That was another thing he couldn't be too quick to volunteer: details about the Machine. Nor could he too easily reveal his work for the government, or his connection to Nathan (and IFT) or to Grace (already compromised), though all of that was likely to come out eventually. By the end of this encounter, Reese would be aware of Harold's year of failures - and the years leading up to it, with all the victims Harold had tried his best to ignore.

More than likely, Reese would learn that they'd already met once, briefly and one-sided, as Harold showed up too late to do more than get in the way. Part of him had, unreasonably, hoped that he'd never have to reveal how close he'd come to saving Jessica - not close enough, obviously, and just one link in a giant chain of tragedies brought on by his own apathy, but it was the one failure that would matter the most to Reese. And the man had already attacked him once today; it was possible that this ended with Reese getting revenge for Jessica's death on the one person who could have actually done something to stop it.

An unlikely outcome, certainly, but Harold couldn't entirely dismiss the idea.

* * *

Pulling himself out of his thoughts, Harold watched Reese laze in the chair - one leg over the armrest as he continued to examine the sparse contents of Harold's wallet. Somewhat belying the agent's relaxation were the sweaty armpits of his t-shirt, the way his skin glistened and his newly shaved hair stuck up at odd angles. Dragging dead weight upstairs, and doing so in a hurry, had taken its toll.

Regardless, Reese was going a little overboard in his attempt to look relaxed. And Harold was suddenly aware that it _was_ an attempt, a _manipulation_. In the countless hours of footage he'd reviewed, he'd never seen the agent so loose, so casual - there was always an undercurrent of the potential for violence, a trait that normal people wouldn't pick up on, but that, by now, Harold found oddly familiar. It was striking, now, that Reese had managed to bury that aspect of his training so thoroughly.

So Reese was using body language as a weapon. No, that wasn't accurate: no threat, no attack. He was using it as a _tool_ , and, just like the way he'd removed Harold's clothing, it was a calculated effort to maneuver Harold, to pry him open.

Harold was just about to conclude the same thing about the silence, when Reese spoke up.

"Did you honestly hack the CIA records? Because frankly, I'm a little impressed by the idea."

Surprised, Harold started to sort through the possible points of vulnerability from related detail, but then he cut that process short and decided to just get the ball rolling.

"Not the most secure place I've managed to get into," he said, lifting his chin with a hint of pride, while he calmly buried his impulse to go into detail on that point. After all, his more impressive digital infiltrations had taken place well before the internet properly existed.

"Mmm. Sounds like quite the story." Reese paused. "The information you know about me: You get that mostly from hacking, or do you have some contacts within the agency?"

Rather than answer the question directly, Harold jumped straight to the larger worry underlying it: "I recognize, Mr. Reese, that you're concerned about the threat to your freedom if anyone finds out that you're still alive. Regrettably, that's out of our hands. Thanks to the altercation on that subway car, your prints have already been run; I wasn't fast enough to reroute the attempt. The CIA-"

"You actually tried to interfere with a police investigation. From behind a computer." Reese narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing Harold more closely.

Pushing back his discomfort, Harold held Reese's gaze. "I assure you, my skills were up to the task; I just didn't figure out fast enough that the task was required, and, past a certain point, interference would raise more red flags than the original search did. Unfortunately, it can't be long before the CIA is up here sniffing around, and if you want to be long gone before they get here, I wouldn't blame you."

"Trying to get rid of me?"

"What? No!" Harold drew his shoulders back stiffly. "You must understand, Mr. Reese, I don't know how high a priority you are to them, how fast they'll get here… I have no intention of preventing you from leaving if there's honestly a danger to you. But my research into your skills suggests that you'd actually be quite good at evading capture, so… as long as you're aware of the threat, we might be able to work around their presence to some degree. It may not mean the end of the operation, if we're careful."

"So you _are_ still thinking of me as a potential employee."

"You would be uniquely suited to assisting me, if you were inclined to try. I have yet to find another option that even comes _close_."

Reese tapped his fingers on his knee for a while, contemplating. "How long have you been following me, anyway?"

"Over the past year, I've spent a substantial amount of time working out who you are and what you have done with your life," Harold admitted - hoping Reese wouldn't think to question if this was after Mr. Casey or before. "But it wasn't until you showed up back in New York that I started actively tracking you."

Reese nodded slowly. "And you... tried to prevent the CIA from learning that I was alive."

Harold took in a deep breath. "Mr. Reese, I need someone with the training and, well, physical capabilities that I lack. Someone who can work in the field while I use my not inconsiderable skills at hunting through digital data. And if you think that's as easy as hiring a guy off the street, well…." For a moment, Harold was lost in painful images of only a few months ago. So many mistakes. A man dead; a shovel in Harold's trembling hands.

"I've dealt with people," he continued, "who possessed the requisite physical skills, but were wholly inadequate for what I need to do. It was only when I saw you spare Mr. Casey that I began to understand some necessary qualities that I had… overlooked, with my previous employee. That's why I decided that if I had the opportunity, I would attempt to recruit you."

Reese looked away, his face going blank again.

"So yes, I tried to keep you off radar. Because if the CIA gets ahold of you again…." He trailed off; Reese hardly needed to be informed of what they'd do to him if they caught him. But he didn't need to convince Reese of the danger; he needed, rather, to convey his commitment to defending his partner against whatever might threaten him, even before the agreement was official. "I'm not about to let the same people who threw you away the first time have a second go at it. Not when I'm in a position to intervene. The work that I've been trying to do, I can't do alone, and you - you're obviously close to your limit, you're - I think you truly need this job, every bit as much as I need someone to fill it."

With a sudden jolt, Reese got to his feet, and paced over to lean one arm against the door frame, his back to Harold. He took a couple heavy breaths. "Why now?" he asked, almost tonelessly. "Did it just take you this long to learn enough about me to feel comfortable?"

"Believe me," Harold said darkly, "learning a lot about you has not made me feel _comfortable_. After my… previous experience, I was quite hesitant to take the risk. But, when I saw that you had been picked up by the cops, I knew that I had to accept you without any further hesitation, or lose the possibility of your help forever. And I am convinced that you are exactly the partner that this job requires."

For a long moment, Reese didn't turn around. The only sounds in the room were their shared breathing and the light whirr of a fan in the next room.

"You know what I think?" Reese said at last, turning back to face Harold. "Why you did all that research? You wanted someone who was predictable - controllable. You thought you knew what I was capable of, you made peace with the fact that I've killed people - though I still don't think you actually grasp the reality of it - but you convinced yourself that if you knew me well enough ahead of time, you could reason out what I'd do and how to counter it. And now, because you had to move too fast, you're out of your element and… floundering."

Sudden anger flushed through Harold like a wave. "Mr. Reese," he said tightly, "whatever else you may think of how I do things, you should know that trust isn't something I come by easily. I have been private and - and paranoid, for most of my life, not without good reason, and it's not like being _drugged by my own employee_ made me more willing to take things on faith."

Reese's eyebrows went up. Another story he'd like to hear later, no doubt.

"So yes, I did my research," Harold went on. "I tried to find out if you were worth seeking out. I knew you had most of what I was looking for, and I- it-" His breath was coming too fast; he had to stop and fill his lungs, find air again. He was shaking, his shoulders so tense it sent pins and needles along his back. Oversharing like this was dangerous, and his system was on full alert, seeking an out he couldn't give it right now. Wincing, he squeezed his eyes shut, and slowly, too slowly, managed to get some control over himself.

When Harold opened his eyes, Reese was back by the chair again, one hand braced on the back as he regarded Harold with a mix of patience and quiet curiosity.

Harold focused on his breathing until, eventually, he was calm enough to continue. "I truly hope, Mr. Reese," he said, "that once you see what I'm trying to do, you'll want to stick around for your own reasons. The good we can accomplish is... immeasurable. But if not, if you want to run off and disappear again, I'll give you enough money to go wherever you like. My folly with the theatrics notwithstanding, I never intended to keep you here against your will - certainly not when events are already set in motion to find you."

With a soft chuckle, Reese picked up boxers and shirt from the pile, and, rather than tossing them this time, sauntered over to the bed. "I think we're getting somewhere, Harold," he said lightly, and handed them over.

Harold tried to quell the surge of gratitude that ran through him. It was pure operant conditioning: Action, reward. Return the clothing one or two pieces at a time, establishing dominance and getting Harold to associate comfort with the desired behavior of handing over his secrets. Besides, it made no rational sense to be grateful for receiving your belongings back from the man who stole them in the first place.

As Reese was walking back, Harold tried to shrug the shirt on, but he hadn't quite finished when Reese turned to face him and dropped into the chair again. Harold felt absurdly undressed while fumbling (damn his shaking hands) with the buttons.

He tucked the boxers in beside him under the covers - perhaps Reese would grant him some privacy later on - and met Reese's gaze again. "What part of the conversation are you rewarding?" he asked, partly to show that he was aware of the trick, partly to get an idea of the best moves for the future, but also, to be honest, partly just curiosity. "What did you learn from that?"

Reese's mouth twisted to the side. "It's kinda funny, you talking about keeping me here against my will, when you're the one pinned to the bed," he said, and Harold blinked, not sure if that was even an answer to his question.

"Granted," he said, and let out a huff of air - but couldn't help the smile tugging at his lips.


	4. Reservations

Despite the momentary levity, it didn't take long for Reese's mood to darken again. As he sat there, silently observing Harold, his eyes went serious and his expression became progressively grim. At length, eyebrows furrowed, he rested one finger on his cheek.

"When you say I have some qualities that your previous employee lacked," he said, "what exactly do you mean?"

"The key factor, Mr. Reese, is that you care about saving the lives of the innocent. That's what you'll be doing, if you - if you join me."

"He didn't care?"

"My former associate cared about _money_ , Mr. Reese. Under my direction, he did save people, but… he was never invested in their welfare. If someone got hurt, or got killed, he just shrugged it off; it didn't affect him. As you can imagine, this could hardly motivate him to devote all his resources to the task at hand, which… well, I wasn't in the field with him, so I can't say for certain that his attitude ever cost a life that he could have saved, but I strongly suspect as much. So while we certainly accomplished more than I ever could on my own, his contributions could, at best, be said to be… tolerable."

"This the guy who drugged you?"

"Yes," Harold said, wincing as the memories started to surface again: the confusion shifting to alarm as he felt the sedative taking over, as he realized that it came from the tea; his vision going fuzzy and his muscles weak as he grasped at Dillinger's hands, trying desperately to keep him from committing a grave error that would cost him his life. Suddenly off-balance - the jarring pain across his back and shoulders as he hit the floor, already too far gone to even whimper. Vaguely feeling the feet brush past his face, and being too disconnected to even open his eyes, let alone continue pleading; his fate in the hands of others.

Later that evening, a gun in his face - the first time he'd ever been looking down a barrel, not knowing if it was going to be the last thing he ever saw. And that terrible heaviness when he realized that the only way to stop Dillinger's self-chosen path to destruction would be to give him information he could never have - because with that information in his hands, Dillinger could do far, far worse than merely become an unwitting sacrifice on the altar of the new information age.

With an effort, Harold pulled loose from the images. _Regret_ , he reflected: _an attempt to avoid what has already happened_. His task today was to avoid letting this encounter turn into yet another string of regrets.

When Harold looked his way again, Reese hummed lightly. "What about the people you hired before him?"

"He was the first and only person I employed for this task," Harold admitted. "And since his- since we parted ways, I've been quite hesitant to take on another partner."

Tapping his fingers on the armrest, Reese narrowed his eyes at Harold. "You already had one guy who turned out to be bad. Now you're, what, trying to choose someone you _know_ is bad because at least that way you won't be tricked into lowering your guard?"

Harold blinked. "Mr. Reese, you are _nothing_ like my former employee."

"What, because I use guns instead of drugs? My way's a little more final."

"Is that really all you see in yourself?"

"What else do you see in me, then?"

Never had Harold heard such despairing self-loathing delivered in a voice that was basically toneless. It made his skin crawl to think of this man, who had started with such fire and such promise, being progressively desensitized, desecrated, and demolished by the very forces he had thought would let him do good in the world. Was it even possible to undo some of that damage, just using words?

"When I saw you spare Mr. Casey's life," Harold began haltingly, "I knew I was looking at a man who could disobey orders for good reasons, even when it might harm him to do so. Someone who wasn't just interested in the most expedient way, but had some desire to do the right thing, to make the right choice. That's what I need, Mr. Reese, a man who can make the right choice - not just someone who's in it for a paycheck, not just someone whose leash I hold."

Breaking eye contact, Reese glanced away and down at the floor - no emotion on his face. Harold looked away too, in helpless sympathy for this man who seemed unable to even connect himself with the concept of doing right anymore. But perhaps, with time, that could be overcome. If Reese could manage to trust him enough to work with him, even for a while-

"You can set your own salary, of course," he floundered, not sure what else to say. "You were only half wrong with the 'bored rich guy' remark - I did spend the better part of my life amassing money, so whatever you feel you deserve for this job, whatever you want to ask of me, I can pay it."

He didn't miss Reese's face going even more blank at the word _deserve_. The agent rested his forehead in one hand; after a moment, he took in a breath, the corners of his lips twitching. "You have access to unlimited funds, and you didn't lead with that? You had to start with the creepy stalker angle?"

Gathering himself a little, Harold raised his chin. "There are… a lot of facets of my system that could be compromised by a person with a mercenary mindset. _Have_ been, actually. That's what went wrong with my former employee. _All_ he cared about was the money, so of course when he saw what he thought was a better deal, he took it - with no thought for the consequences. Had he known that-" Harold suddenly choked down the info that he'd been about to spill, and the effort gave him a coughing fit.

Had Dillinger known that the market value of the laptop paled in comparison to the potential market value of a certain man he'd known only as Harold Finch… well, that encounter could have gone over very differently. Maybe Dillinger would still be alive - though Harold doubted it. Maybe instead of negotiating with John while half-dressed, Harold would currently be in prison, serving a life sentence… or, more likely, in a secret location, being tortured by the Chinese (if not agents of his own government) until all his secrets came tumbling out of his broken body.

As ever, Harold's safety lay in his secrecy; Reese was, in theory, every ounce the threat that Dillinger had been. Of course, this time, Harold's secrets were necessary bargaining chips; the only choice lay in which secrets to surrender.

Reese, seemingly thoughtful, waited.

When Harold managed to catch his breath, he centered himself and went on. "A person who cared only about money would be a threat to the operation, and to me personally, neither of which is acceptable. But it has become abundantly clear that I am inadequate to the task alone; with all my money, information, resources - everything I could possibly throw at the problem - I still watched person after person after person get killed, because I didn't have a man in the field. And, later, because the man I hired lacked the motivation and couldn't be trusted with the information he needed to do his job. I need someone who knows nearly as much as I do, who has the skills to handle whatever unexpected problems arise, and willingly throws himself into the task, despite the danger. An agent like you is, well... priceless. So of course I am willing to pay whatever you ask of me."

Passing a hand over his mouth, Reese glanced at the ceiling; it was a long moment before he looked back. Finally, he let out a breath. "If you're playing mind games, you're pretty skilled at it."

"Mind games?" Now Harold was utterly lost.

Reese studied him again. "Did you think I didn't know it when my prints got run?"

"I wanted to _make sure_ that you knew it. Otherwise-"

"Not what I asked," Reese countered, gaze fixed on Harold's face.

Brows furrowed, Harold glanced down, trying to follow Reese's reasoning, but he couldn't get a grasp on it. "I… don't know that I even considered it. I'm not even sure why they printed you to begin with - the charges that got filed don't warrant it."

Reese huffed. "They don't need to file charges just to run your prints."

"Do they just print everyone they bring in? I was under the impression-"

"They print you if you aren't up front about your identity."

"Oh." Harold turned the information over in his mind for a bit. "Then - either you couldn't prove who you were, or you…" Realization struck him, and he gaped. "You- you didn't even _try_."

Reese inclined his head, a substitute nod.

"But if you - you knew what the CIA would do with your info, you _knew_ they'd come after you. Those warrants - you almost let them put you in jail. If I hadn't intervened - Mr. Reese, were you _trying_ to get caught?"

A strange expression crossed Reese's face, and he looked away again.

"I… I don't understand," Harold murmured - though he was beginning to get an inkling, and the thought alarmed him.

Tilting his head, Reese studied Harold with narrowed eyes. A long moment later, he let out a breath, and the tension seemed to drain away, leaving behind exhaustion. "...I'm tired," Reese confessed, and rubbed a hand over his face. "I don't even know _what_ I meant to do when they caught up to me. Hell, maybe it's one of those 'more efficient ways' to kill myself. I'm just tired of the bullshit, and I'm tired of the mind games, and I just - I want it to be over already."

A chill ran through Harold as he stared at Reese, who was, again, not meeting his eyes. Before approaching the agent, Harold had recognized that he was suicidal - but not how very close Reese had drawn to the edge. It was as though he had absolutely nothing left: no pleasures, no energy, no reason to keep existing.

During his research, as Harold came to understand how ideal Reese seemed for the job, he had found himself mentally adopting Reese into the role of the partner his future self would have. It was part of the reason he'd been so baffled when Reese had turned him down. Tonight's events had been a stumbling block, to be sure, but by now, defending Reese's welfare had become nearly synonymous with defending his own.

So Harold was painfully aware that the stakes here were more than just the operation, or his own dignity, or even Diane Hansen's life: If they couldn't work this out, if Reese walked away... he might even be dead by morning. The possibility was intolerable.

Wracking his brain for a new angle, something more he could add to the discussion, Harold finally pressed, "What do you mean by mind games?"

A flash of anger crossed Reese's face. "Playing around with my head," he said. "Saying things that aren't true just because you think I want to hear them. Telling me things I already know, making it seem like you're giving me information when you're not." Suddenly his shoulders slumped and his face dropped into his hands. "Why did you tell me about the CIA?"

Hadn't they just gone over this? "I told you-"

"You said you're not trying to get me to leave, and you still want me to work with you. But if that's the case- look, I don't know what sort of city-wide surveillance tech you've got going for you, but you'd certainly be aware of a CIA presence in the city long before I would."

"Well… yes. Ideally. I can't do much of the running around, but I can keep tabs on certain threats and assets, steer you around problem areas… redirect attention, if it comes to that."

"But why did you _tell me_?"

Harold frowned. "I'd hardly be upholding my end of the partnership if I left you in the dark - your safety depends on knowing where the threats are."

Reese didn't speak right away. This time, Harold decided to just wait him out.

At length, Reese leaned forward in his chair. "You're a man who likes safety nets. The CIA - when they got here, it would have been trivial to steer me into their path. Fast, effective, contained - legal, even."

Flabbergasted, Harold gaped at him. "What part of _wanting to work with you_ made you think I'd abandon you to the CIA?"

"It's a permanent way to get rid of me - if I turned out to be a bad call, like your previous employee." Reese paused. "If you didn't see that move as a potential tactic-"

Indignance flushed through Harold, but he pushed it aside - not helpful right now. "It would hardly be productive to start out a new partnership with the _assumption_ that you're going to betray me," he said, before he could wonder if he'd be conveying more than he intended to by the wording. "And as for the events concerning my previous employee, I'm not entirely guiltless; I'm sure I could have handled things better, and then perhaps the outcome would have been less" - _lethal_ , he was going to say, but caught himself- "undesirable."

Reese wasn't looking convinced. Somehow, Harold had to impress upon Reese that his decision wasn't tentative, that the position wasn't temporary.

"The fact of the matter is," he said, "one poorly chosen employee was nearly disastrous; I can't do this through trial and error. I can't just wait for the danger signs and then cut my losses and run. I need to choose right this time, from the start, if it's at all possible for me to do so. And I- the, the one I have chosen, the one who seems the most capable of meeting my requirements, the good man I need on my team… that's you."

Reese flinched, and Harold watched the blank mask slide down again as the agent got wearily to his feet. "You're either a con man or a naive idealist," he said firmly, "and right now I can't tell the difference. But I don't fancy working for either."

Whatever progress they might have been making was lost behind those words, behind the way Reese was analyzing him now - and the fact that he was clearly about to head for the door. It struck Harold that the man before him was so used to people acting in their own self-interest that when someone broke the pattern - as Harold had, when his actions didn't fit the model - it was harder to accept their motives at face value than to try to come up with some angle they were working, some way they benefited from the move. Did dealing with the CIA really make you so cynical about the world?

Even as the thought crossed his mind, he reflected that although his primary motivation for connecting with Reese was to save the Irrelevants, there was certainly an undercurrent of trying to alleviate his guilt and the frustration of his own impotence. But did that really matter? The guilt, if anything, simply motivated him not to hold anything back in his devotion to the task, and he was acting to save lives - Reese's life included.

"There's nothing I could say to refute the con man hypothesis," Harold said quietly. "When I planned out this meeting, I had intended to convey to you early on that while the government lied to you, I never will. That is my promise to you, and only time can prove the worth of that assertion.

"And I am certainly an idealist," he admitted, "and somewhat naive, as you've proven today. But I have spent decades on this planet, and what the first part of my life failed to teach me, these last ten years have managed to drum into my head. Enough to make me acknowledge my connection to the random strangers out there whose information comes my way… to understand that I can't look the other way, can't justify my apathy as 'for the greater good' like I used to. There's no excuse to have this information and not act on it. Yes, we have to be careful that the public doesn't learn of it, but… I have the ability to do right by these people, these potential victims, and I intend to do whatever it takes to accomplish that good.

"If that means working with someone I still have reservations about… well, I've been watching you for a long time, John, and despite being forced into this a little earlier than I had planned, despite feeling a bit out of my element, despite" - he gestured at his half-clothed self and the bed he was still strapped to - " _this_ , I'm willing to trust you. To take the risk of working with you, even put my life in your hands. Because the alternatives are worse."

A small choking noise escaped Reese; emotions crossed his face too rapidly for Harold to follow, and his breathing was ragged. Then the agent closed his eyes, seemingly in pain, and collapsed into the chair again.

"I need someone who can throw themselves into the job for the right reasons," Harold pressed, "or, at least, none of the really wrong ones. I believe that you can do that. I can offer you a steady paycheck, a safe place to live, a partner to watch your back. But the most important thing I can offer you is the chance to do good - to save people - to- to _be there in time_. If that's not enough to convince you to at least give this a try, then… I'm afraid that's all I've got."

Reese's breathing slowly evened out; he raised his eyes to regard Harold, face carefully neutral.

After a long moment, he got to his feet, gathered up the rest of Harold's clothing, and brought it over to the bed. Harold accepted the bundle, and searched Reese's face, but it betrayed nothing of what the agent was thinking.

"You're a good man, Harold," Reese said, his voice rough. "Better than I expected." He reached down beside the bed and gave something a good tug, and Harold felt the sheet loosen.

Then Reese turned and walked out of the room. Harold heard the door open - and close again. As the silence stretched on, he realized that he was, finally, alone.

The thought was suddenly more alarming than comforting.


	5. Judgment

Nestled within the pile of clothing were Harold's wallet and phone, confirming the end of the interrogation. Harold scooted his way out of the bed and dressed hastily, feeling the panic well up inside him - even worse when he heard, faintly, the chime of the elevator. Was Reese leaving for good? There was virtually no chance of Harold catching up to him on foot, and now that Reese knew to actively avoid video cameras, the chance of finding him again by the usual surveillance techniques was also vanishing. By the time Harold got hold of his laptop, Reese could be out of his reach for good.

It unsettled Harold to head into a public space with a suit jacket over his arm and his vest not even buttoned - but he could finish up in the elevator, and right now he had more pressing concerns than his normal sense of propriety.

What had gone wrong?

Right before leaving the room, it had seemed that Reese had finally been convinced that Harold was on the level - that he wasn't trying to pull one over on him, harm or control him, or set him up for some kind of scheme. The mistrust Reese had started with had fallen away, and he'd accepted the truth that Harold was a good man, one who wanted to accomplish good in the world.

It was everything that Reese seemed to want; Harold had been sure of it. So why had he just left? What else was holding him back? Was it truly a lost cause - was there nothing at all that Harold could have said or done to convince him to give their partnership a try?

He didn't want to believe that. Not yet. Not with lives on the line. Not after all the effort he'd put into researching the man - with every detail proclaiming more and more clearly: _This is the one_. Not after lasting through an entire interrogation and somehow, against all odds, managing to convince Reese of his good intentions by nothing more than words.

There had to be a chance. He didn't just _want_ to believe that - he refused to think otherwise.

He stepped out into the hallway, but there was no sign of Reese. Not knowing what else to do, Harold limped over to the elevator and pushed the button. The door opened immediately.

Harold hesitated.

There was no way to know how many people were using rooms on this floor, but he hadn't heard other people in the hall… and it seemed odd, somehow, for the elevator to be right there. If Reese had gone down to the lobby, the elevator wouldn't have returned to this floor. Unless… had he pushed the button, and then had second thoughts?

And if he hadn't used the elevator… where had he gone? Harold glanced around. Had Reese broken into another room, just to get Harold off his trail for a while? Had he used the stairs?

He had a sudden, dizzying vision of Reese looking over the edge of the roof, debating whether it was finally time to end it all. Because whatever hope Harold had thought he was offering had turned out to not be enough. God, he hoped that wasn't where Reese had gone - but if he had…

Harold couldn't think of a single new thing to say, anything that might persuade Reese, anything that hadn't already been said in that room. But so long as Reese hadn't jumped yet, Harold couldn't give up on him, and that thought made him hurry toward the stairs, wincing at the strain on his bad hip after sitting on the bed so long.

The heavy stairwell door was hard to push open, and left Harold panting a little from the unexpected effort. He leaned against the wall for a moment, and looked despairingly at the steps he was about to climb.

Ever since the explosion, stairs had become his daily nemesis. The library remained his base of operations, for reasons that went beyond the practical, yet he couldn't very well hire a construction crew to renovate for disability access - not without giving up the fiction that the property didn't exist. So each time he climbed to his workstation, silently bearing the familiar pain and stress, he let it focus his mind on the task he was to perform. That pain had come to feel like part of his penance.

Here and now, he thought, briefly, about turning back to take the elevator up the extra two floors. But in the time it would take him to get back down the hallway and wait for the elevator, he could probably have managed the task this way - it would just hurt more. So he set his jaw and got to it, focusing only on the one step in front of him, just one at a time. It wasn't a very tall hotel; he could do this.

His determination didn't keep him from being out of breath after only a few steps, nor from having to stop and lean against the railing a couple of times. Soon, he abandoned his jacket, leaving it hung on the railing; he could pick it up on his way down, and right now he didn't need the extra weight or hassle. He had to keep moving.

Halfway up the third section, just in sight of the roof access, his knee buckled; he couldn't suppress a cry, and only his iron grip on the railing kept him from a disastrous fall. Panting through the pain, he managed to turn his body around enough to sit himself down on the edge of the landing. His knee felt tender, and hurt when he tried to stretch it out; he positioned it as well as he could, trying to keep his groans to a minimum.

Sitting there, helpless, he thought of Reese, poised at the edge, with no one there to talk him down. Harold's broken body couldn't get him there when he needed it. How many times had he played through this scenario in the past year? He'd watched a pre-teen jump to her death, listened to gunshots that took out whole families, dragged his half-numb leg through piles of leaves in the dead of night just in time to bear witness to Dillinger getting shot - and felt like he'd signed their death warrants twice over, because the injuries that kept him from doing something useful were his own damn fault.

That undeniable reality was what kept him from coddling himself, even when the pressure on his hip joint felt like glass shards. He never let the pain keep him from trying. But damaging his knee further could mean the end of the limited mobility he had built up so far. Even if he were careful, paid closer attention to his footing - the injury could be compounded by jostling the knee around. There were so many reasons to just give up and sit here; he could phone the hotel, wait for help…

Pushing aside the logic, and the overwhelming, bone-deep desire to just give in and rest there - _just for a moment_ \- he clutched at the railing and started to pull himself up, trying not to put any pressure on the bad knee just yet. Pain would come, but he was not afraid of pain. There was only a little ways to go, and Reese needed him.

He had almost managed to right himself when he heard footsteps hurrying up the stairs.

The usual polite demurral sprang to mind, an excuse to not need help; he never let himself be dependent on random strangers. But he couldn't let pride or embarrassment keep him from getting to Reese. The only question was how to express the urgency in this context, keep them from focusing on _his_ injury. _My friend's been very depressed lately, and I think he went up to the roof - don't worry about me-_

But that would just leave him there on the stairs, and if Reese were really planning to jump, how likely was it that a stranger could persuade him otherwise? Harold had to get up there himself, had to convince the newcomer to help him up the stairs.

As he was trying to come up with the right phrasing, and struggling to leverage himself up without putting pressure on his knee, the footsteps came around the corner, and Harold looked up-

-and gaped as Reese's lanky body sprang into view.

The shock was enough that he almost let go of the rail. Instead, carefully, he lowered himself back onto the step, wincing with every shift of his knee. When finally Harold was settled, he looked up at Reese; the release of pressure was a relief in more ways than one.

"You're hurt," Reese said, concern etched across his face - one of the few strong emotions Harold had seen from him that night.

"Uh- I-" Harold floundered, then swallowed and closed his eyes. "My knee gave out." He winced again. "It - it's fine, I… I just need to sit here a moment."

Looking skeptical, Reese knelt a couple of steps down from him. Before Harold could protest, Reese's hands were lifting and manipulating his knee, gently examining the swollen tissue by feel. But he wasn't looking at the knee - his gaze was fixed on Harold's face. And from the way he backed off at Harold's slightest wince, Reese seemed intent on not causing him any more pain than he had to.

"Mr. Reese, I-"

"Shh. I need to listen."

Cautiously, Reese bent the knee in a few directions, and then sighed with relief. "Not your ligaments or meniscus. Nothing's dislocated, swelling's light - probably just a sprain. Ought to get it checked out, though, and in the meantime, ice and elevation. And no more stairs for a while."

With that, he placed Harold's foot down, gently, the knee at a good angle for now. He didn't stop studying Harold's face. "Why are you even _on_ the stairs?"

"I could ask you the same thing, Mr. Reese. If you weren't heading for the roof…"

Reese stared at him a moment longer, then folded down onto a stair himself, sideways, the exhaustion bleeding back into him again. "God, I can't even leave you in peace without hurting you," he said, shakily.

"Is- is that what you thought you were doing?" Harold asked, frantically trying to put together a mental model that fit this new information. Reese had left for _Harold_ 's good?

Hunching over, Reese rested his forearms on his knees and sighed heavily, bowing his head. His eyes were tightly closed, as if he too were in pain.

Something was wrong here, deeply wrong - Harold wasn't sure exactly what, but something about what he'd said or how Reese had taken it, something profoundly affecting Reese….

"If you think leaving now will bring me peace," Harold said, "then I haven't fully conveyed to you the predicament I find myself in. That stunt with the recording - it wasn't just to manipulate your emotions, to make you more willing to listen to me… it's the reality I wake up to every morning. There's always someone who needs help, someone who will _die_ if I don't intervene, and I bear the burden of knowing about it ahead of time but not being able to do anything useful with that knowledge. I've tried involving the police, I've hired private agents, tried to warn the victims myself, even limped my way through apartment complexes that ought to have been condemned, and… I couldn't save them. I couldn't offer the police enough information or motivation; the victims rarely took me seriously. I'd get to the right apartment just in time to find a fresh corpse.

"Once I-" He took in a shuddering breath, and tried to keep his voice steady; it was hard to divorce his emotions from the memory. "I found a mother and her three young children, one of them not even walking yet. Her husband had cheated on her, and she - she was from a culture where you don't move on from that sort of dishonor. She'd killed them all, and killed herself afterwards. I got there only a few minutes late. Debated about calling 911, but it wouldn't have mattered. I sat in the hall for an hour, too numb to even cry.

"So you see, Mr. Reese, there is no peace for me alone. And there will _be_ no peace, until I can find someone capable of stepping into these situations and giving them happier endings. Maybe not even then - it may well be that I will _never_ know peace again. But I- I have to do _something_. And you could help me."

"Harold-" Reese said, a desperate moan, but he cut it off fast and looked away.

"But you still don't want to work for me. Why? What's the alternative for you? To be honest, I'm concerned about what will happen to you if you _don't_ accept."

"It doesn't matter what happens to me," Reese said tonelessly. "I'm not the right guy. You still don't get that." There was that self-loathing again. Whatever conclusion Reese had come to, it was based on seeing himself as unfit.

"I am getting the impression," Harold said slowly, trying to reason it out, "that even though you trust me enough to free me, you do not, or cannot, accept my assessment of you as the type of partner I desperately need."

"What I said before I left - you're a good man. It's hard to stay good once you start getting exposed to the shadows."

"So you trust my character," Harold asserted, "but not my judgment. Or at least, not so far as it concerns you."

Reese stayed silent. Harold's knee was throbbing, the swollen joint getting tight beneath the wool of his trousers. But icing it would have to wait.

"Mr. Reese… John," Harold said softly, "I've answered many questions for you today. Would you answer some of mine? Truthfully? I don't intend to pry into state secrets, so just… give me a straight answer."

For a long moment, there was only the rise and fall of Reese's shoulders; then, somewhat jerkily, he nodded.

Harold lowered his gaze. He had to make these count. But where to start?

"When I said you want to protect people, was I very wrong?"

Reese sucked in a deep breath and let it out again. "No," he said, not looking at Harold.

"Is that what you were hoping for, when you enlisted?"

"Yes."

"I know that your experience with the military took you to some dark places… made you do things you neither expected nor wanted to do. But setting that aside, do you feel that you were able to protect people?"

"Yes. Some people. Not enough."

"Would you like to be in a position to help people now?"

Reese choked and dropped his head, folding in on himself a little.

Harold considered. "Do you… still feel that there are people in the world worth saving?"

"Yes," Reese managed, but his voice was strained.

"Do you think it's worth it - trying to save them? Even if we can't - even if we fail?"

Reese hesitated, then nodded without raising his head.

"Then… well, I guess there's only two parts here. Do you think that I am capable of helping people, and willing to do so if I can?"

Another nod.

"Do you think that you are-"

Reese dragged his hands across his face. His breaths came deep, almost desperate, almost as though he were choking back sobs.

"Is it shame?" Harold asked. "Or, perhaps I should say, is shame the primary factor that's holding you back right now?"

"Harold-" Reese managed, but cut himself off and stayed silent.

"I've very thoroughly researched your life, Mr. Reese. If there's a crime on your list that wasn't written down, something that I don't know yet, I don't see how it could possibly be worse than murder, or torture. You needn't be afraid that I'll turn on you after learning what you've really done. I know enough about you; I'm not God, so I can't absolve you, but I also can't condemn you, and I've made peace with your past. I wouldn't have spent so much time on you if I hadn't seen something inside of you that makes the rest of it... irrelevant."

"Irrelevant." Reese's voice was shaky.

"We will be doing _good_ , John," Harold said, then corrected- "Mr. Reese. I can't shy from that just because of the mistakes of my past. You and I have both hurt people, but we have a real chance here to _help_ people. Don't give up on that possibility just because you've done wrong."

Reese swallowed and breathed heavily for a long moment. When finally he looked at Harold, his eyes were half-lidded, dull. "You say that, but you cannot possibly grasp what I've done and still think I'm the kind of person you need. The fact that you just don't _get_ that… that's what worries me. You're going to run into other people who are like me, and they're going to hurt you, because you're too _trusting_."

 _That_ one would have forced him to restrain a laugh - except that Harold's mind returned, again, to Dillinger, and the consequences of Harold's inability to trust even his most important asset at the time. He wouldn't be making the same mistake with Reese.

Studying Reese's expression, he said, "Do I need to go through a list of the crimes I know you're responsible for? Or would it be sufficient to point to a couple of specific examples? Torturing innocent civilians for information they didn't have. Framing other innocents for crimes they never committed. Breaking apart families because the government needed a scapegoat."

Reese's face had gone blank again. If he weren't so used to hiding his emotions… Harold imagined that he would perhaps have looked stricken.

"My naivete is a bit of a mixed bag," Harold continued, "but you're wrong if you think I don't 'get' the kind of tasks you've performed over the years."

"You're the one still trying to get me to work with you, telling me I'm a 'good man'-"

"You are! Yes, you've done horrible, horrible things, things I can barely wrap my head around. You've destroyed lives, destroyed families - I don't even know the age of your youngest victim, and I'm not sure that I want to, but it doesn't matter. You're not trying to justify the things you've done, and that means you're aware that they're wrong, and you're capable of putting them behind you-"

"I'm a killer, Harold," Reese said, his eyes hard but his voice expressionless. "That's what I've spent most of my life doing. I follow orders, I go where I'm told and I shoot the people I'm told to shoot. Sometimes I toss the bodies in the water. Sometimes I melt them down with a lye bath. Sometimes I just leave them where they fell. You gonna tell me you'd be comfortable working with a man like that?"

"You keep saying that, but that can't be all that you think of yourself," Harold countered.

"Doesn't matter what I think of myself. You know why I rose through the ranks. I'm capable of taking orders. They've ordered me to do horrible things, and I've done them. You really want to be holding my leash, Harold?"

Harold bowed his head, to the extent that he could, and let out a breath. "You asked me earlier, Mr. Reese, if I'd encountered very many violent people. And yes, I have - far more than I would ever want to, most of them in the past year alone. I can't pretend to understand their mindsets, but I _know_ them. And while you are certainly _capable_ of violence, you clearly aren't the kind of person you think yourself to be."

"What if I am?" Reese's tone had gone as blank as his expression. "I follow orders, Harold. If I join you, if I start taking orders from you… someday you're going to order me to shoot someone, and I'm going to do it. You don't want that on your conscience."

And Harold suddenly caught the subtext: In Reese's eyes, the fact that he had killed people made him so tainted that he was trying to push Harold away here. As if the taint could spread.

"You really think I chose you _in spite of_ your skills," Harold said slowly, keeping his eyes steady on Reese's face. "Mr. Reese, this job isn't a tame one. There is almost always a murder involved. Not accidents, not spur-of-the-moment rage, but deliberate, premeditated acts of violence. If I sent someone in there who wasn't prepared to kill, I'd be sending them to their death. That's not any better than just sitting by while innocent people die."

For the first time, Reese looked a little out of his element, as though of all the answers Harold could have given him, this was the one he didn't anticipate. His mouth came open, but the words didn't come right away. Then, finally, his voice not as steady as it had been, he quietly verified, "You expect me to kill for you."

"I expect that you _will_ kill, _when necessary_ , yes. Because sometimes that's better than the alternative. It has to be a judgment call on your part; I can't make it. In fact, I have to extend to you the trust that you can and will make good decisions about when and if to kill. If you can handle the encounter without harming anyone - without undue risk to either yourself or the people we'll be trying to save - then please do. But…" He sighed, and looked away. "I don't like firearms, but I do recognize their necessity. And where an amateur might do worse harm than he meant to, you've got the skills to use precisely the amount of force you intend to use."

Head tilted to the side, Reese was staring at him, as if regarding a rare and precious sight. After a moment, he seemed to breathe easier - a weight lifted off his shoulders.

"I don't know that this will ease your mind," Harold added, "but we've more in common than you think. The world thinks we're both dead, for starters. And… while I've never deliberately taken a life, I'm responsible for the deaths of more people than I care to think about - although I _do_ think about them, often. If you count up the people who have died because of my stupidity, and add them to the people who've been targeted for death because of my brilliance… well, even one death would weigh on my conscience, and the number is quite a bit higher than that. And it never stops growing."

Reese studied him, taking that in. "So, what, this do-gooder routine you've got going, that's to make up for the deaths you caused?"

"Nothing can make up for the deaths I've caused. People aren't interchangeable; that's not what this is about. But that's the point: Each individual matters, and we have the opportunity to help some of them, using information no one else in the world has access to. Mr. Reese, you're used to working with information the general public isn't privy to, and with this… I need someone with discretion. Someone who can use this information without allowing it to spread, and who has the skill to ghost into situations without leaving too much evidence behind. Without those qualities, this operation would be over before we'd barely started."

For a moment, Reese looked somber. Then, softly nodding, he said, "I can do that."

A sudden hope sprang up inside Harold. Was it possible? "Does that mean… are you willing to work with me, then?"

A smile slowly stretched across Reese's face - not a large one, not even a particularly pleasant one, but the first Harold had seen from him in person. It pushed the haunted look out of his eyes almost completely.

"Ten minutes ago," Reese said, "I was sitting on the stairs down there, coming to terms with the fact that I'd just been offered everything I've ever wanted, and I couldn't take it, because I was too tainted to qualify. And I thought that was it for me. I'd found the point where I was more than just exhausted, where I honestly wanted to give up on life… because the meaning I wanted in my life was something I could never have - not even if it were handed to me directly by an angel."

"... dear God. My offer almost killed you."

"Yeah." Reese ran a hand over his mouth. "You're right, you know. When you said I was trying to drink myself to death. Because there's nothing else left for me. There's nothing in my life that I care about, or want, not anymore. And here you offer me a chance to make my life into something worthwhile again, to do good, and… if this comes crashing down, that'll be the end of me. You know that."

"I do," Harold admitted, accepting his role as Reese's lifeline. If there was nothing else he could do for the man, he would at least keep him afloat until he was no longer in danger of drowning.

"So yes, I'll work with you. And if you're really everything you appear to be, Harold, then… I'll pledge my life to your service. As thoroughly as any knight… or bondslave."

"I don't want to _own_ you, Mr. Reese."

"I'm not going to find a better master. And really, serving is what I'm good at."

"Well… if you _must_ think of it that way, I can adjust. For now. I hope, in time, the metaphor won't be necessary."

"Well, if that's settled, what say we go save Ms. Hansen?" Reese said, getting to his feet. He held out a hand toward Harold.

A smile quirked Harold's lips for a moment before he accepted the hand and cautiously got up, balancing on his good leg. Reese moved into position at his side; Harold took his arm, and they went down the stairs together, slowly. Each time he had to put weight on his bad knee, Harold winced, and his breath caught, but Reese's firm support made it possible to keep going without being in danger of another collapse.

"You know," Reese said suddenly, "when you brought up Jessica, I honestly wanted to kill you."

Harold blinked. "Thank you for restraining yourself."

"Barely. I could have done a lot worse. Not even sure why I held back."

"I still believe what I said: You're not inherently a killer. You want to protect people."

Reese stayed silent until they got to the landing. After testing the door to see that it wasn't locked, he left Harold holding onto the railing and trotted down to grab his suit jacket.

"This is really nice work," he said as he helped Harold put it on. "I noticed earlier."

"Earlier as in when you met me, or when you stole all my clothes?"

Reese chuckled. "I knew it was custom-tailored when I met you, but I got to admire the fabric while I was folding it up."

"The term is _bespoke_ ," Harold said primly, as Reese opened the door for him. "And I don't mean to belittle your current wardrobe, Mr. Reese, but if you'll indulge a bored rich guy for a little while, I think it's high time we set you up with a good tailor."

As the door closed behind them, Reese held out his arm again. "You don't want to own me, but you want to choose my clothing for me?"

"For utility as much as appearance. A properly fitted suit won't restrict your movement in the field, and will get you into more locations than a t-shirt and jeans can. And it shouldn't be hard to add a few hidden pockets for whatever small tools you need."

"So, definitely not an attempt to get me out of my clothes as payback, then."

Harold turned his upper body enough to glare at him.

"Just checking," Reese said, and pushed the button for the elevator.

"Mr. Reese, I have been through some truly harrowing experiences in my life, and have spent the last year in chronic pain that I will likely never be free of. And yet you managed to concoct a scenario that left me… well, I can't say that I have ever been as discomfited as I was in that bed today."

"That was the intention."

"I'm aware."

"In the same situation, with the same info, I'd do it again. But for what it's worth, now that I have a better idea of the kind of person you are… I'm sorry you had to go through that."

Harold let out an irritated huff.

"Still think you're gonna pick up bad habits from me," Reese continued.

"Oh?"

"Maybe not shooting people. But stick around me long enough, pretty soon you'll be learning to pick locks, plant evidence… next thing you know, you'll be lying to doctors, making deals with mob bosses, jaywalking…"

"I _already_ lie to doctors, Mr. Reese. And… jaywalking? This _is_ New York."

"No objection to framing people or palling around with mobsters, then?"

Harold shot him a look. Just then, the elevator doors opened, and Harold limped inside, leaning on Reese's arm only long enough to get within range of the handrails.

As the doors closed and the elevator began to descend, Harold leaned his head back against the wall and let out a shuddering breath. "You know that part about avoiding stairs for a while?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm afraid our base of operations is less than ideal."

"Harold, every detail of this setup is less than ideal. But it seems to me we're still gonna make it work."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence. Now let's go help Ms. Hansen… and once that's done, we can see about your suit."

Reese grinned. "I'm all yours."


End file.
